Compassionate Communication Course For Healthcare Professionals

This course was taught at Mahec for many years. The course has built in flexibility to accommodate the learning needs of professionals, individuals, and couples who want to learn compassionate communication.

For Managers and Supervisors

In today’s business climate that mandates “do more with less,” managers and supervisors need to find ways to be more efficient with their team members. Learning effective communication can be the leverage you need to maximize your human resources and time. You will learn to:

Handle conflicts and personality clashes among staff which impacts morale and effectiveness and take your time away from program management

Make it easier and more comfortable to engage in “hard-to-have” conversations with staff instead of putting off these conversations

Deeply hear employees who are upset or have anger issues

Help you tie in your personal needs with the needs of the departmental vision

Increase buy-in and support of your vision by using highly refined expressions of gratitude

Better communicate your needs to your supervisor

Become a more effective committee member and collaborator

I took Compassionate Communication because I was having difficulty as a Clinical Manager in making my words that came out of my mouth match what I was feeling in my heart. What I learned was to give myself permission to verbalize my feelings and identify my needs. Instead of snapping back at co-workers when I was interrupted, I took a moment to connect with myself. Then I could look up with a smile and say “How can I help you?” Compassionate communication changed my life and my career! This has had a positive effect on my team. —Lisa Keener, RN Clinical Manager Asheville Office, Bayada Nurses

For Nurses and Allied Healthcare:

Most often, your job as a nurse is about supporting people in times of crisis centered around their health. Emotions run high with patients and family members. Preparing yourself by increasing your emotional intelligence can make your workflow no only more efficient, but more enriching as well. You will learn to:

Proactively connect to patients’ physical and emotional needs and deeply hear what they are wanting and needing to collaborate care

Empathize with patient or family members’ fears or complaints and bring them to resolution

Handle difficult patients without taking it personally by hearing their anger directed at you as tragic expressions of their unmet needs

By the end of the course, I found I could communicate much more effectively with my patients. Using the principles of compassionate communication, I was also able to guide my patients into communicating much more clearly with me. It has greatly enhanced my clinical effectiveness in providing care to my patients. The most significant thing I have noticed is that my patients trust me more, so they are more willing to open up to me. For example, I saw a patient with multiple painful burns. I spent some time just talking to him before I began his treatment, and by using empathetic listening and being able to address his fear and pain with him, it made the treatment so much more therapeutic. We came up with some strategies together – for example, we agreed that if the pain got too bad, he could call a timeout and I would give him a “breather.” We used this strategy to great effect – and it really helped him feel like he had some control of the situation. After he left, the other nurses in my clinic both commented on how good they thought I did at talking and supporting this patient through his pain. Thanks so much for giving me these tools! —Lori Yerse, RN, CWOCN Manager, WestCare Wound Clini